Photo by Albert Sanchez

By Paul Freeman [1995 Interview]

Ani DiFranco steeps her music in such searing honesty, fans feel like they share a profound bond with her. She displays wisdom, power and fearlessness few singer-songwriters dare try to equal.

We interviewed DiFranco after the release of her 1994 album "Out of Range."

She recently published a memoir, titled "No Walls and the Recurring Dream." In our review, we said: Like her music, Ani DiFranco's memoir is distinctive, honest and inspiring. She details her remarkable journey, from a difficult, unconventional childhood, to becoming an emancipated teen and busking on the mean streets of Buffalo, to establishing one of the most important, influential and individualistic indie music careers. She set up her own label, Righteous Babe Records, and turned her back on the mainstream music industry.

DiFranco describes her intimate relationships, her inevitable business struggles and her unflagging passion for making music. For her, it's all about making a connection with a listener. She doesn't want to be a star on a pedestal. She's an uncompromising artist who doesn't shy away from speaking her mind. It's no wonder that this modern folk singer has been warmly embraced by people like Pete Seeger and Nora Guthrie. But DiFranco was also drawn to idiosyncratic artists in other genres, including Thelonious Monk. Over the course of the book, she touches on encounters -- some casual, others more significant -- with other performers, such as Maceo Parker, Utah Phillips, Bob Dylan and Prince.

Here the Grammy-winner, mother of two, delves into her perspectives on feminism, activism, the patriarchy, gender roles and social justice. Her views prove to be consistently intelligent, insightful and courageous.

She also examines her personal odyssey. As a youngster, she encountered those who helped her, mentored her, as well as those who took advantage, who used her. But every challenge, every detour only made DiFranco stronger and more independent. She didn't bend to society's rules or expectations. Nothing could dim her burning intensity and integrity.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
The decision to create your own label, was that simply pragmatic? Was it all about having creative control?

ANI DiFRANCO:
Well, it's not really creative control that I'm worried about. I'm not too worried about that. It's not a pragmatic thing. It's definitely an ideological thing. It's not that I think they would try to manipulate what I do at all. You know the number one rule of capitalism is, when something is selling, you don't f-ck with it [laughs], you just sell it.

So I'm not really worried about people telling me what to do. I'm more worried about sort of supporting a system that I don't believe in and kind of playing a game that I don't think is very useful, very helpful.

PCC:
What are the aspects of the system that you find most unappealing?

DiFRANCO:
Just in general terms, I think the music business is just a big business, like any business. And it's all about making money. It's sort of a business that worships rock stardom and has the purpose of moving units and couldn't care less about revolution and making music [laughs].

Basically, when I started getting approached by industry people and they started to be interested in me, I just had this overwhelming feeling that these are not my people. So I don't think it's worth it to work with them for the purpose of fame and fortune. I mean, that might be interesting for a few minutes, but it's not really my priority, I guess.

PCC:
And it's better to get it on your own terms?

DiFRANCO:
Yeah.

PCC:
The industry may treat artists, generally, quite callously, insisting they conform to a certain image, wanting them to fit into a comfortable niche. Over the years, that's been even worse for women. Has that been changing at all?

DiFRANCO:
Again, I think I would be treated like a queen, if I made them enough money. I think that any artists who make enough money and move enough units are treated very, very well and gain the respect of people who that is of most importance to. But I don't really want that kind of respect.

PCC:
You've built and maintained a very loyal and growing fan base on your own.

DiFRANCO:
I think it's maintained by me toting my butt around the country constantly for years and years. I'm just a working musician. I tour pretty constantly. I guess my whole fan base has been based on incessant touring. And it's much more based on the performance and me hitting every little town and every little bar, than on marketing or national TV exposure or publicity. There's none of that kind of thing.

PCC:
And the new technology is making it easier for the artist to connect directly with listeners and not have to rely on corporate assistance. Would you welcome the extinction of major labels?

DiFRANCO:
Absolutely. Cut out all the middle men. I think that they pretty much see it coming. The days of the multi-national media corporation empires are just going to wane once the technology is such that the music can get right from the people making it to the people listening to it... Although I only recently sort of learned to turn on a computer [laughs]. Its much more theoretical for me. But luckily, there's all kinds of fans out there who -- I've heard, I've never been in the internet -- but I've heard that they post my schedule and there's all these discussion groups, that I would never ever want to look at [laughs], that kind of thing.

PCC:
If and when this all happens, do you think the music is going to change, substantially?

DiFRANCO:
Well, you know, there's tons and tons of sub-corporate music going on out there right now. And I think the access of people to it will change. It's not as though the only music that's being made right now is major label shit. It's just like, you don't know about it. It's hard to find out. So people will maybe be exposed to much more of what's really going on.

PCC:
Your own music, the fact that people relate so strongly is because it's so personal. Is it easy to reveal yourself through the music? Or was that a big step?

DiFRANCO:
Well it gets easier and easier. I guess maybe in the beginning, it was a little bit disconcerting. But after a bunch of years of just standing up on stages and pulling no punches, I've sort of come to the conclusion that there is just nothing that is too private or too personal, that that's just an excuse that people use for not talking about the difficult shit. It's sort of like, as far as I'm concerned, any experience that any of us has is universal, because there's millions of other people who have had it.

There's nothing that any of us does or feels or experiences that hasn't been experienced by so many other people. And the fact that there's certain things that are taboo subjects or that we're not supposed to talk about, that we can't bring ourselves to talk about, I think it's just more about conforming and about fear than it is about the fact that this is a personal thing. Do you know what I'm saying? Does that make any sense?

PCC:
It does. But have there been any particular subjects that people seem to respond to and say, "Wow, I'm glad you talked about that"?

DiFRANCO:
Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a really good feeling, in a way to sort of be an inspiration to people... or an example. Like, "Look! I just stood in front of a whole of bunch of people and said this... and got away with it. So you can do it, too!"

PCC:
What are some of the things you've written that have gotten that sort of reaction, where people feel you're expressing something they had been feeling?

Photo by Albert Sanchez

DiFRANCO:
I don't know, I mean, there's so many. Like people write me so many letters, approach me after shows and say, "When have you been living my life?" or "You know that song? That's exactly what happened to me." Again, I think we all have so much more in common than we'd admit to, maybe. So, I don't know which particular lines or anything.

PCC:
Dealing with social and political issues, do you think, "That's something I would like to touch on," and then try to work it into a song? Or does it have to happen more organically than that?

DiFRANCO:
Definitely the organic. I just sort of relate my experiences through my music. I mean, my only intention in my songs is not really to address issues. I'm not really that focused in that sense. For me, it's more telling my story, which, for me, is the basis of politics. I don't think of politics in terms of issues. I think of it in terms of how we dress, what we say, what we do, what we eat. For me, politics is day-to-day existence. It's not headlines.

PCC:
What was the music that first made an impression on you, that inspired you?

DiFRANCO:
Well, I think it was a whole bunch of things. I suppose there were like singer-songwriter people who used whatever sort of grassroots musical form to tell stories, that whole sort of troubadour, wandering folksinger type character [laughs], I think has been part of my vocabulary from really early on. And then, when I went to college -- I went to college a little bit, not much, but some of the things I was reading, some of the political things I was reading, some of the poetry, feminist theory. I went to the New School for Social Research for a couple years. And it all sort of came together.

PCC:
You actually started performing in bars when you were nine? How did that come about?

DiFRANCO:
Yeah [laughs]. There was this guy I met when I was nine. He was a folksinger type, a sort of chain-smoking, alcoholic, barfly, songwriting guy who had this beater acoustic guitar and he used to play in bars in Buffalo, where I grew up, daily. And for some reason, we really hit it off. We just bonded instantly. I'm nine. He's like 33. So we used to play shows together. I would play with him. We would play Beatles songs or whatever. So I was out in bars, hanging with the singing, songwriting crowd early on.

PCC:
And then you were out on your own at 15?

DiFRANCO:
Yeah.

PCC:
What made you decide to do that?

DiFRANCO:
Well, it was just sort of practical, really. I mean, my parents had split up years before. My mom was moving to the country, which didn't sound so good to me [laughs]. And my dad and I weren't really hitting it off. So I just got a little place.

PCC:
So songwriting just became a natural outlet for self-expression?

DiFRANCO:
Yeah, well, this same guy, Mike Meldrum, who I had started hanging out with, when I was younger, he was also bringing singer-songwriters in from New York City. He had this, what he called The Greenwich Village Song Project. And so all these people were coming. He would bring them to Buffalo and they would play in bars in Buffalo, as well, like Suzanne Vega and Michelle Shocked and John Gorka and Rob MacDonald, Cliff Eberhardt, Christine Lavin, all these, kind of the New York crew at the time, some of which became famous, some of which just got bitter [laughs].

Some of them stayed at my parents' house, back when we had the house, and we had an extra room. So I guess there were a whole bunch of songwriters skulking around my childhood [laughs]. So I figured, "Well, I could do this!"

PCC:
So was Mike a family friend?

DiFRANCO:
Sort of. He would come over and drink his way through our liquor cabinet. But he was more sort of my friend. He's a real Buffalo institution.

PCC:
A lot of artists start out with idealism, but it gets lost along the way. How have you managed to hold onto it?

DiFRANCO:
I guess it just kind of depends on the personality of the person. I think that, for me, I've always been politically dedicated. Or maybe I'm just a real idealistic girl [laughs]. So yes, a lot of people start off with a lot of really good intentions and they're really genuine, but somewhere along the way, they get sucked into the whole music biz. And they lose sight of the energy, the impetus that they started out with and it becomes something else.

But by the same token, there are so many musicians that I know of that really are operating on a sub-corporate level that never lose the point. And that's kind of why I like folk music. I don't embrace folk music totally, because sometimes it's just really boring [laughs] or really silly. But the aspect of folk music that I think is really cool is that it happens outside the sacred circle of the music industry, because there's no money in it. So they don't give a shit about it [laughs].

PCC:
When you're described as a folk singer, people may have preconceptions. Is that a problem for you at all?

DiFRANCO:
No, it's a problem for lots of people who play acoustic guitar. They would throw themselves into traffic before they would call themselves folksingers. But I love it. I love calling myself a folksinger and then showing up somewhere and like diving off stage and body-surfing at my shows [laughs]. That, I think, is what language is all about. You reclaim words and you change them. That's what we all do. I could call myself a folksinger and that would mean one thing and not necessarily that Joan Baez thing.

PCC:
Well, you're certainly helping to revitalize the genre. And you have another album coming out soon?

DiFRANCO:
Yeah, it's called "Not A Pretty Girl."

PCC:
Great, we'll look forward to hearing that.

For the latest news and tour dates, visit www.anidifranco.com.